The Kraken Black Spice Rum constitutes my first foray into the world of rum, therefore, I will not offer a score, but will I provide tasting notes. According to Wikipedia, as the Kraken website itself offers little in the way of actual useful information about their product, Kraken is a rum-based spirit sourced from Trinidad and Tobago. It’s crafted using distillate from fermented molasses and locally-grown sugar cane, and is then aged for up to two years prior to being infused with “a mix of 11 spices, including cinnamon, ginger and clove.”
It’s quite dark in the glass, a warm mahogany brown, with a nose that is strongly vanilla, and perhaps toffee. In the mouth its quite smooth, and that vanilla note seems to lead the charge. It is possible to pick up traces of ginger and Christmas cake spice on the finish. 94 Proof
I used the Kraken rum in my first attempt to make Cannelés de Bordeaux, an attempt which failed rather spectacularly, although the flavor was spot on. More on that later.